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The
lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida's capital,
Tallahassee, says the state law is designed "to stigmatize and
demonize transgender and nonbinary people" and deprives them of
the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution.
The state law, which took effect in July, says school employees
cannot tell students to call the employees by their preferred
titles or pronouns, if the preference does not correspond to the
sex assigned at birth.
Several other states have passed laws saying teachers and
classmates do not have to refer to students by their preferred
pronouns.
One plaintiff, identified as AV Schwandes, says they are
non-binary and were fired from a teaching job at a "virtual
school" in October for continuing to use the honorific "Mx." at
work. The other plaintiffs are transgender women who say they
have been forced to accept being misgendered.
"Florida intentionally sends the state-sanctioned, invidious,
and false message that transgender and nonbinary people and
their identities are inherently dangerous, especially to
children," the teachers' lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law
Center, a civil rights group, wrote in the lawsuit.
The Florida Attorney General's Office did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
The case is the latest to challenge laws adopted by Florida and
other Republican-led U.S. states aimed at limiting discussions
of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools. Critics
call them "don't say gay" laws and claim they are unlawful and
harmful to LGBT people.
In April, Florida education officials voted to ban classroom
instruction on those topics in all public school grades after
state lawmakers in 2022 barred it through third grade.
A federal judge in August dismissed a challenge to that law, and
an appeal has been put on hold after the state and the students
and parents who sued said they were negotiating a settlement.
Last month, civil rights groups sued to block a similar Iowa law
that covers kindergarten through sixth grade.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by
Alexia Garamfalvi and David Gregorio)
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